Anatolia, Turkish Anadolu, also called Asia Minor, the peninsula of land that today constitutes the Asian portion of Turkey. Because of its location at the point where the continents of Asia and Europe meet, Anatolia was, from the beginnings of civilization, a crossroads for numerous peoples migrating or conquering from either continent.

This article discusses the history and cultures of ancient Anatolia beginning in prehistoric times and including the Hittite empire, the Achaemenian and Hellenistic periods, and Roman, Byzantine, and Seljuq rule. For later periods, seeOttoman Empire and Turkey, history of.

Ancient Anatolia

Prehistoric cultures of Anatolia

Anatolia may be defined in geographic terms as the area bounded to the north by the Black Sea, to the east and south by the Southeastern Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, and to the west by the Aegean Sea and Sea of Marmara; culturally the area also includes the islands of the eastern Aegean Sea. In most prehistoric periods the regions to the south and west of Anatolia were under the influence of, respectively, Syria and the Balkans. Much visible evidence of the earliest cultures of Anatolia may have been lost owing to the large rise in sea levels that followed the end of the last Ice Age (about 10,000 years ago) and to deposition of deep alluvium in many coastal and inland valleys. Nevertheless, there are widespread—though little studied—signs of human occupation in cave sites from at least the Upper Paleolithic Period, and earlier Lower Paleolithic remains are evident in Yarımburgaz Cave near Istanbul. Rock engravings of animals on the walls of caves near Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, suggest a relationship with the Upper Paleolithic art of western Europe. Associated with these are rock shelters, the stratified occupational debris of which has the potential finally to clarify the transitional phases between cave-dwelling society and the Neolithic economy of the first agricultural communities.

In the Middle East the first indications of the beginning of the Neolithic transition from food gathering to food producing can be dated to approximately 9000 bce; the true Neolithic began about 7300 bce, by which time farming and stock breeding were well established, and lasted until about 6250 bce. The Neolithic was succeeded by the Chalcolithic Period, during which metal weapons and tools gradually took their place beside their stone prototypes, and painted pottery came generally into use. The Chalcolithic ended in the middle centuries of the 4th millennium bce, when the invention of writing foreshadowed the rise of the great dynastic civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and was followed by periods of more advanced metalworking known as the Early and Middle Bronze Ages.

It was long understood that the origins of agriculture and stock breeding should be sought in those areas of the Middle East where the wild ancestors of modern food grains and the natural habitats of domesticable animals were to be found. This line of inquiry pointed to the well-watered uplands around the fringe of the Fertile Crescent: Iraqi Kurdistan, northern Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean coast. Indeed, the first discoveries of Neolithic farming communities were made in these regions. Until the 1960s it was thought that, apart from the coastal plain of Cilicia, Anatolia had remained uninhabited until the beginning of the Chalcolithic Period. Since then excavations have completely changed the picture, although none has yet revealed a settlement earlier than about 8000 bce. The earliest settlements were characterized not only by the domestication of barley and sometimes wheat but also by the absence of pottery and of domestic animals other than the dog. Hacılar, near Lake Burdur, shows an earliest occupation about 8000 bce by a people living in mud-brick houses with plastered walls and floors, painted and burnished like those in contemporary Jericho. Afterward abandoned for nearly a thousand years, Hacılar was reoccupied in the late phase of the Neolithic by villagers of a far more sophisticated culture having advanced agriculture and pottery. The houses were symmetrically arranged; the discovery there of a striking collection of seminaturalistic figurines shed new light on Neolithic art and symbolism.

The gap in the archaeological record between the widely separated Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods was filled by the discovery (1961–65) at Çatalhüyük of a Neolithic settlement that was occupied from the mid-8th to the mid-7th millennium. The discoveries at Çatalhüyük not only amplified but also transformed the whole conception of human behaviour in Neolithic times. In the town, houses were built of sun-dried brick, closely contiguous like the cells of a honeycomb, but each had several rectangular rooms similarly planned and was accessible only by a wooden ladder from its flat roof. The contiguous roofs provided space for the communal life of the inhabitants. Some of these buildings appear to have been religious shrines, elaborately ornamented with heads or horns of animals, either real or imitated in plaster. The walls were decorated with coloured murals, repeatedly repainted after replastering, and some designs closely resembled the cave paintings of the Paleolithic Period. As a source of information about the activities, appearance, dress, and even religion of Neolithic peoples, these paintings are of great significance. Other arts and crafts were well attested. Human and animal figurines were carved in stone or modeled in clay. Bone was used for tools and implements, sometimes with finely carved ornamentation. Weapons included polished maces, arrows, and lances with tanged obsidian heads. Impressions of mats and baskets were found, as well as implements used in spinning and weaving. Miraculously, fragments of actual textiles were recovered and preserved. The presence of Mediterranean shells and of metal ores and pigments not locally available suggests extensive trade. Undecorated pottery was in use throughout the life of the settlement, its shapes often imitating those of wooden vessels, examples of which were found intact.

Agriculture and dairy farming probably formed the main basis of the economy at Çatalhüyük. The location of the settlement on a river subject to regular flooding suggests that irrigation may have been practiced; the presence of bones of wild cattle, deer, and boar confirms the implication of the wall paintings that hunting was still widespread. The existence of other, less precocious Neolithic cultures shows that the peoples of the Anatolian plateau generally played a significant part in the spread of early farming.

The Chalcolithic Period

The transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic phase of cultural evolution is thought to have taken place gradually in the late 7th millennium bce. At most sites where its progress can be traced, no perceptible break occurs in the continuity of occupation, and there is little reason to assume any major ethnographic upheaval. Archaeologically, the most conspicuousinnovation is the decoration of pottery with coloured paint, a widespread development in western Anatolia. Late periods at Hacılar were characterized by the production of some of the most competently and attractively decorated pottery in prehistoric Anatolia, and in the subsequent middle phase of the Chalcolithic Period polychrome wares were produced in south-central Anatolia and Cilicia. Village architecture of this period is undistinguished but provides evidence for the necessity of communal defense, which was accomplished by means of a circuit wall or—as in Hacılar—a continuous wall formed by the outside rear walls of contiguous houses. At Hacılar and Can Hasan, the heavy ground-floor chambers of these houses had no doorways and were evidently entered by ladders from a more fragile upper story. Improvements in architecture at this period, however, can be seen at Mersin, where one of its later phases is represented by a neatly planned and constructed fortress. The steeply revetted slope of the mound was crowned by a continuous defensive wall, pierced by slit windows and entered through a gateway protected by flanking towers. Inside, there was formally arranged accommodation for the garrison and other evidence of military discipline as conceived in 5200 bce.

Metallurgy was beginning to be understood, and copper was used for pins and simple implements. But there are occasional glimpses of a greater sophistication: a copper mace-head from Can Hasan, more developed tools and the first occurrence of silver at Beycesultan, and a stamp-seal in tin bronze at Mersin. Little is known about the late phase of the Chalcolithic Period; soundings into strata below settlements of the Early Bronze Age, which the period anticipates, indicate that in western and central Anatolia this late phase introduced simpler rectangular houses and dark burnished pottery with simple incised, jabbed, polished, or white-painted decoration.

Superficially, progress during the Chalcolithic Period may appear to have been slight. This apparent lack of development, however, may instead reflect the inadequacy of our present knowledge. The energetic flowering of the Early Bronze Age that followed must have been based on an increased confidence and ability in agriculture and stock breeding and, most importantly, on a growth in metallurgical skills that is largely invisible in the archaeological record.

Early Bronze Age

The period following the Chalcolithic in Anatolia is generally referred to as the Bronze Age. In its earlier phases the predominant metal was in fact pure copper, but the older term Copper Age created confusion and has been discarded. Archaeological convention divides the Bronze Age into three subphases: early, middle, and late. The beginning of the Bronze Age, in the mid-4th millennium bce, corresponds in Egypt to the predynastic period and in Mesopotamia to the early Protoliterate; it lasted until late in the 2nd millennium. In its earlier stages a number of well-defined cultural provinces have been recognized, distinguished by slight disparities in their archaeological remains: a northwest province, represented by the excavations at Troy; a central Anatolian province, documented by the soundings at Alişar Hüyük, Alaca Hüyük, and elsewhere; an extensive southwestern province, best characterized at Beycesultan; a Cilician province, represented by Mersin and neighbouring Tarsus; and a southeastern province known from Arslantepe-Malatya, Norşuntepe, and other sites in the Elazığ region. Other, less clearly defined provinces are found in the Eskişehir and Konya plains and in the Pontic region. The Early Bronze Age itself is customarily divided into first, second, and third phases.

Several factors combined to produce a period of economic growth. Cultivation of the grape and production of wine brought greater agricultural prosperity. Adoption of the wheel increased the production of pottery and, more importantly, improved transport. Seafaring seems to have increased. Metallurgical skills previously developed became more visible and were in wider use, attested in particular by such finds as the so-called “Priam’s Treasure” from Troy and grave goods from royal tombs at Alaca Hüyük. Technical processes included casting in closed molds (the lost-wax process), metal inlay, sweating and soldering, hammering and repoussé, granulation, filigree, and even cloisonné. The metals used included copper, bronze, silver, gold, electrum, lead, and iron, which was then far more valuable than gold. All these metals were obtainable in Anatolia, although the tin needed to make bronze may have been imported. Semiprecious stones and other materials used in association with them included rock crystal, carnelian, jasper, nephrite, and obsidian, all native to Anatolia, along with imported ivory, amber, and lapis lazuli. Mesopotamian demand for metals and metalwork may have stimulated production for export. Where trade was controlled by local rulers, as at Arslantepe-Malatya, levies could concentrate wealth in the hands of ruling families.

Fortified sites—whether single buildings, villages, towns, or palaces—were the norm. A single building at Karataş-Semayük was defended by a ditch, a plastered rampart, and an enclosure wall. Villages such as Demirci Hüyük relied on the outer wall of a radial arrangement of houses. The citadel of Troy had heavy stone walls with mud-brick superstructure, a clay-covered glacis, and projecting gates with inner and outer sets of doors. The number and variety of weapons found—daggers, swords, spears, and battle-axes—suggests a culture given to warfare or at least to military display.

A possible temple at Arslantepe-Malatya had a heavily built T-shaped plan and walls decorated with painted and impressed designs. Beycesultan houses had megarons—large central halls with porches at either end—arranged in pairs with circular hearths backed by twin stelae and clay horns, suggesting an affinity with Cretan cults and a possible dedication to male and female deities. Gods of the underworld may have been venerated in underground chambers enclosing springs; these chambers have been found in southeastern Anatolia. Figurines are universal, in clay, stone, bone, and metal. In the west they usually had a figure-eight shape, but in Cappadocia a disk shape was preferred, with triangular heads on long stalks. Occasionally these figures were modeled in the round.

In western Anatolia the dead usually were buried in cemeteries outside the settlements, often in large clay vessels. In central Anatolia, however, a group of cistgraves dating to the second and third phases of the Early Bronze Age was discovered beneath the Hittite city at Alaca Hüyük. There, several generations of a ruling family had been buried amid funerary paraphernalia and private possessions. Ritual objects in the tombs included latticework bronze disks, possibly representing the sun goddess, and solid-cast standards bearing models of stags, bulls, and rams; all these may have been attached to wooden furnishings, such as carts, of which no trace is left. Other finds included private possessions often made in precious materials; these possessions included weapons, jewelry, toilet articles, domestic vessels, and utensils. A comparable group of tombs has been found at Horoztepe near Tokat. Cremation-burials first appear in the third phase at Gedikli Hüyük in southeastern Anatolia.

Most pottery was monochrome red or black, with incised and white-painted decoration sometimes occurring in the first and second phases. Fluting and ribbing resembled the decoration of metal vessels and was especially characteristic of the southwest. In central and southern areas painted wares reappeared in the second phase, and in the third phase a purple-on-orange ware with strongly geometric designs appeared in the Kültepe region. A related polychrome ware appeared simultaneously in the Elazığ and Malatya regions. The most important technical innovation in ceramics was the introduction of the potter’s wheel, which in most areas occurred about the beginning of the third phase.

The transition to the third phase of the Early Bronze Age, possibly about 2450 bce, brought with it the general appearance in western Anatolia of wheel-made plates and two-handled drinking vessels. These, together with other western styles in pottery and architecture, spread also to central and southern areas. Surveys have suggested that many sites were destroyed at the end of the second phase. Some scholars therefore have argued that speakers of an Indo-European language entered Anatolia at that time from the northwest. The language, in this view, would have been ancestral to Hittite and Luwian. Indo-European is first attested in Anatolia in names occurring in Middle Bronze Age tablets from Kültepe, but the date, route, and even the reality of an Indo-European invasion or infiltration are all controversial. Furthermore, it is likely that the greater universality of styles occurring in the third phase can be attributed simply to increased contact through trade and improved transport. The beginnings of trade with Assyria are indicated by the pottery and small objects of Kültepe in the third phase; this trade was to develop strongly in the Middle Bronze Age.

Middle Bronze Age

The Middle Bronze Age, beginning about 2000 bce, seems to have been a period of prosperity and cultural progress in the cities of Anatolia. Assyrian merchants, interested in the mineral wealth of the country, built up a chain of trading stations that stretched from Ashur to the Konya Plain. By agreement with the indigenous rulers, to whom they paid taxes, the merchants established themselves in colonies in the suburbs of Anatolian cities. The principal trading colony, or karum, has been discovered at Kültepe (ancient Nesa), where Assyrian archives show that the foreigners lived on good terms with their Anatolian neighbours and intermarried with them. The karum itself, known as Kanesh, resembled a chamber of commerce, with authority to fix prices, settle debts, and arrange transport.

The history of the karum falls into two periods, divided by some disaster that resulted in the destruction of the suburb by fire, after which it was rebuilt. Because written records were kept, the approximate dates of these two occupations may be calculated by correlating textual references to the names of Assyrian kings whose dates are already known. The first occupation, which was the longer and more productive of the two, must have covered the reigns of Erishum, Sargon I, and Puzur-Ashur (c. 1920–1850 bce), while the second was contemporary with that of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1813–c. 1781 bce). This second occupation probably ended in a fire about 1740 bce during the reign of Samsuiluna of Babylon.

The successive occupations of the karum are paralleled in contemporary building levels in the main city mound where the palaces of the local rulers were situated. Another contemporary palace is known from Acemhöyük. Such palaces occasionally have produced vitally important cuneiform texts written on clay tablets in the Assyrian dialect of Akkadian. In addition to writing on clay, Anatolian scribes in the cities also adopted the use of the cylinder seal, which they decorated with designs of their own. The elaborate repertoire of figurative symbolism used for this purpose, together with that found in molded lead figurines, provides clear evidence of the existence of an indigenous Anatolian culture that persisted through the vicissitudes of economic and political change; the same tradition reappears with little alteration in the art of the Hittites.

The destruction of Nesa and its merchant colony marked the end of Assyrian trade not only there but also in other merchant colonies, such as Acemhöyük (probably the ancient Purushkhanda) and Hattusas (site of the later Hittite capital), which, together with a number of other cities in central Anatolia, were also violently destroyed. It is not clear who was responsible for the destruction. The Middle Bronze Age sites of western Anatolia were largely unaffected by the Assyrian trade but show a gradual increase of contact across the Aegean with Crete and mainland Greece.

The rise and fall of the Hittites

The Hittite occupation of Anatolia

The first suggestion of the Hittites’ presence in central Anatolia during the Middle Bronze Age is the occurrence in the Kültepe tablets of Indo-European personal names in the correspondence of the Assyrian merchants and local rulers of central Anatolia (the “Land of Hatti”), whose non-Indo-European language is known as Hattian (Khattian, Hattic, or Khattic). Although it is now known that these Indo-Europeans called their language Nesite (after the city of Nesa), it is still, confusingly, called Hittite. Besides Nesite, two other Indo-European dialects were found in Anatolia: Luwian (Luvian), spoken by immigrants into southwest Anatolia late in the Early Bronze Age and later written with the pictographs commonly called Hittite hieroglyphs; and the more obscure Palaic, spoken in the northern district known in classical times as Paphlagonia.

The first knowledge of the Hittites, then, depends upon the appearance of typically Nesite names among the predominant Assyrian and Hattian names of the texts. The problem of the origin of the Hittites has been the subject of some controversy and has not yet been conclusively resolved. On linguistic grounds, some scholars were at first disposed to bring them from lands west of the Black Sea, but it subsequently was shown that this theory conflicts with much archaeological evidence. One authority argues for their arrival in Anatolia from the northeast, basing his theory on the burning or desertion during the 20th century bce of a line of settlements representing the approaches to Cappadocia from that direction. The evidence from the cities near the Kızıl (Halys) River and Cappadocia, however, does not support this picture of an invading army, destroying settlements in its path and evicting their inhabitants. The impression is rather one of peaceful penetration, leading by degrees to a monopoly of political power. From their first appearance among the indigenous Anatolians, the Hittites seem to have mingled freely, while the more flexible Nesite language gradually replaced Hattian. It has even been argued that Anatolia was the original homeland of the Indo-Europeans and that they gradually spread east and west after about 7000 bce, carrying with them not only their language but also the invention of agriculture. There are, however, good grounds for rejecting this theory.

Only a few of the tablets of the Hittite archives found at Boğazköy can be dated earlier than the 17th century bce; nevertheless, certain historical texts of this period have survived in the form of more or less reliable copies made in the 14th or 13th centuries. One of these concerns two semilegendary kings of Kussara (Kushshar) named Pitkhanas and Anittas. The city called Kussara has yet to be identified, but the text gives an impressive list of cities that Pitkhanas had conquered, and among them appears the name of Nesa, which his son, Anittas, subsequently adopted as his capital. Also included in the list is Hattusas (Khattusas), known to be the ancient name of the later Hittite capital at Boğazköy, which Anittas was said to have destroyed. The fact that no direct connection could be inferred between these two kings and the subsequent history of the Hittites has been explained by later archaeological discoveries, which demonstrated that Pitkhanas and Anittas were in fact native Anatolian (Hattian) rulers of the 18th century bce. Indeed, a dagger bearing the name Anittas has been found at Kültepe.

The Lion Gate at Hattusas in Boğazköy, Turkey.

China Crisis

The Yerkapi rampart at Hattusas in Boğazköy, Turkey.

China Crisis

The Old Hittite Kingdom

The two main periods of Hittite history are customarily referred to as the Old Kingdom (c. 1650–c. 1500 bce) and the New Kingdom, or Empire (c. 1400–c. 1180). The less well-documented interlude of about a hundred years is sometimes referred to as the Middle Kingdom. Among the texts from Boğazköy, preserved or recopied by the imperial archivists, those relating to the Old Kingdom are comparatively few. For many years historians of that period relied for the most part on a single remarkable document: the constitutionalEdict of Telipinus, one of its last kings. In contrasting the prosperity of the nation under his earliest predecessors with the decadence into which it had fallen at the time of his own accession, Telipinus provides a useful though not always reliable summary of early Hittite history:

Formerly Labarnas was Great King; and then his sons, his brothers, his connections by marriage, his blood-relations and his soldiers were united. And the country was small; but wherever he marched to battle, he subdued the countries of his enemies by might. He destroyed the countries and made them powerless and he made the sea their frontier. And when he returned from battle, his sons went each to every part of the country, to Hupisna, to Tuwanuwa, to Nenassa, to Landa, to Zallara, to Parsuhanda and to Lusna, and governed the country, and in his hands also the great cities prospered [?]. Afterward Hattusilis became King.

Thus, it appears that the Hittites regarded their own history as beginning with a king called Labarnas (Labarnash); this inference is confirmed by the use in later times of his name and that of his wife Tawannannas as dynastic titles or throne names of subsequent rulers. Nothing else is known about this king, however, and it is not certain that he was the first of his line. The earliest contemporary texts date from the reign of his son Hattusilis (Khattushilish; mentioned by Telipinus), and the most important of them is a bilingual inscription in Hittite and Akkadian found in 1957. In the Akkadian version his name is given as Labarnas, and it is implied that he is in fact the nephew of Tawannannas. In Hittite he becomes Hattusilis and is given the double title “King of Hattusas” and “Man of Kussara.” This circumstance has given rise to the supposition that, whereas the original seat of his dynasty was at Kussara, at some time during his reign he transferred his capital to Hattusas (long ago destroyed by Anittas) and thus adopted the name Hattusilis.

The geographic identity of place-names in Hittite historical texts has always been a subject of controversy, but some of those mentioned in the Edict of Telipinus are known: Tuwanuwa (classical Tyana, near modern Bor); Hupisna (classical Heraclea Cybistra; modern Ereğli); Parsuhanda (Purushkhanda; probably modern Acemhöyük); and Lusna (classical Lystra). With the exception of Landa (probably to the north), the sites are all located in the territory to the south of the Kızıl River called by the Hittites the Lower Land, suggesting the first extension of the Hittite Kingdom from its restricted homeland in the bend of the Kızıl River followed hard upon the establishment of the new capital at Boğazköy. The extent and direction of this expansion may have been unforeseen when the site was chosen. As a mountain stronghold dominating the northeastern corner of the plateau, Boğazköy may at the time have had much to recommend it, but later conquests left it on the periphery of the kingdom, and its security was consequently diminished. This possibility is reflected in the bilingual text, which gives a detailed account of events of six successive years of Hattusilis’ reign.

In the account of the first year’s campaign, the obscure place-names give no more than a general impression of a localized operation, perhaps in Cappadocia. In the second year’s records, however, the extent of Hittite conquests is more impressive, and there is some justification for Hattusilis’ claim to have “made the sea his frontier.” In fact, the very first place-name mentioned places Hattusilis beyond the Taurus passes in the plains of northern Syria. Alalkha is almost certainly Alalakh (modern Tell Açana, near Antioch), the ruins of which were excavated by the British archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley between 1937 and 1949. The priority given to this town would suggest an approach to Syria through Cilicia and by the Belen Pass over the Nur Mountains. Two other cities, Igakalis and Taskhiniya, remain unidentified, but Urshu, which Hattusilis besieged (probably unsuccessfully) on his return journey, is known to have been located on the Euphrates above Carchemish. Rather curious in this account is the absence of any reference to the important kingdom of Yamkhad (centred at Aleppo), of which Alalakh was a vassal state. For the rest of Hattusilis’ reign, Aleppo apparently remained the principal power in North Syria, to whose armies and allies his own troops were to find themselves repeatedly opposed.

The third year’s record introduces the names of two states later to play an important role in Hittite history. The first of these was Arzawa, a powerful kingdom with extensive territory in the southwest part of the peninsula, against which Hattusilis now organized a campaign. In doing so, he left his possessions in the south and southeast unprotected, and they were promptly annexed by the Hurrians, a people who now enter Anatolian history for the first time. From the late 3rd millennium bce onward, the Hurrians had infiltrated northern Mesopotamia and Syria from the north and soon constituted an important element in the population of both territories. On this occasion, having abandoned his attack on Arzawa, Hattusilis seems to have pressed them back and recovered his losses, but he spent the next two years reestablishing his frontiers. In the sixth and last year of his recorded activities, he found himself once more opposed to the Hurrian armies in North Syria, this time supported by troops from Aleppo. His feud with Aleppo was never decided in his lifetime, for it is known from other sources that he returned, badly wounded, to his old residence at Kussara, anxious to appoint a successor who might continue the struggle. In this endeavour he was at first singularly unsuccessful, for three of his sons in succession proved unreliable to the point of treason; one of the most remarkable and humanly revealing documents of the period is a long and bitter lament in which Hattusilis chides his sons for their infidelity and ingratitude. This text is one of the first examples of the Hittite language written in cuneiform, and it is thought that Babylonian scribes had been imported into the capital for the purpose of devising a formula by which this could be done.

Hattusilis eventually adopted his grandson Mursilis (Murshilish) as his successor, and he proved a wise choice. His first concern was to avenge Hattusilis’ death by settling accounts with Aleppo, which he destroyed after conclusively defeating the Hurrian armies. Following this victory, he launched an extraordinary expedition against Babylon and, according to Telipinus, destroyed the city. Historians have found it difficult to explain the fact that Mursilis’ army was able to advance almost 500 miles down the Euphrates and overcome the defenses of the Mesopotamian capital. His occupation of the city seems to have been extremely brief, because it was not the Hittites but the Kassites who afterward assumed control of the country and founded a dynasty in Babylonia. The Kassites had penetrated northern Mesopotamia, probably from the east, on the heels of the Hurrians. It is by no means improbable that Mursilis had welcomed them as allies, and the attack on Babylon may have been made possible by their support. Because it must have taken place just before or just after the death of Samsuditana, the last king of the 1st dynasty of Babylon, the event can be dated to 1595 bce. This date also may well have corresponded to the death of Mursilis, for after he returned to his own capital laden with booty, a conspiracy among his relatives resulted in his assassination. The succession of his brother-in-law Hantilis marked the beginning of the catastrophic period referred to in the Edict of Telipinus, during which the Hittite kingdom came near the verge of extinction.

A major disaster during this period, which eclipsed other military failures, was the conquest of Cilicia by the Hurrians. This great coastal plain to the south of the Taurus Mountains, known as the “land of Adaniya” (Adana), was renamed and became the seat of a Hurrian dynasty. The cities of North Syria were thus rendered inaccessible to the Hittite armies, except through the Southeastern Taurus passes, and remained so until imperial times. When Telipinus sought to establish defensible frontiers, he was forced to conclude a treaty with a king of Kizzuwadna named Isputakhsus and was also compelled to renounce his claims on the neighbouring country of Arzawa.

Of equal interest in the Edict of Telipinus is his program of political reforms. Citing examples of the political evils that had resulted in the past from aristocratic disunity at the death of a monarch, he laid down a precise law of succession, specifying an exact order of precedence to be observed in the selection of a new ruler. He further prescribed that

the nobles must again stand united in loyalty to the throne, and if they are dissatisfied with the conduct of the king or of one of his sons, they must have recourse to legal means of redress and refrain from taking the law into their own hands by murder. The supreme court for punishment of wrongdoers must be the pankus [whole body of citizens].

The meaning of the word pankus (pankush) has been much discussed, for it has been taken to mean a general assembly in the democratic sense, composed of the fighting men and servants of the king. Because the pankus is known to have been an essentially Indo-European concept and did not survive into imperial times, its existence has been cited as evidence that at this period the Indo-European aristocracy had not yet merged with the native Hattian population. There is, however, little other evidence to support this suggestion, and in the inscriptions no specific term or epithet is ever used to distinguish the non-Hittite indigenous population.

The Middle Kingdom

Telipinus is ordinarily regarded as the last king of the Old Kingdom. His death marks the beginning of a more obscure period that lasted until the creation of the Hittite empire. The Syrian provinces, which Telipinus had been compelled to abandon, fell briefly into the hands of Hanigalbat, one of the political units into which the Hurrians had become organized. Hanigalbat, in turn, surrendered them to Egypt, after the successful eighth campaign of Thutmose III (ruled 1479–26 bce). This war also seems to be the first occasion on which the Hittites found themselves in alliance with Egypt, as it afforded an opportunity for them to attack Aleppo, which they once more managed to capture and destroy. The Hittite indebtedness to Egypt for its help may be inferred from an agreement between the two states, about 1471 bce, by which a Hittite king—presumably Zidantas II or Huzziyas—paid tribute to the pharaoh in return for certain frontier adjustments, but it is not clear to what extent Syria was dominated by Thutmose III between 1471 and his death. During this period the national unity of the Hurrians seems to have been revived by the imposition of an alien aristocracy and the foundation of a new Aryan dynasty. The Hittites now found themselves confronted on their southern boundaries by a powerful state known as Mitanni. Early in the reign in Egypt of Amenhotep II (c. 1426–1400 bce), the Mitannians were able to recover Syria and establish their authority over Kizzuwadna. The situation was politically disastrous for the Hittite kingdom, for a firm alliance was concluded between Mitanni and Egypt. This was sealed by a royal marriage between a daughter of the Mitannian king, Artatama I, and the young Egyptian king, Thutmose IV (c. 1400–1390 bce).

The Hittite empire to c. 1180 bce

It is possible that the branch of the Hittite royal family that gained control in the 15th century bce may have originated in Kizzuwadna. Although the dynastic names remained Hittite, Hurrian names began to appear in the royal family. The profound penetration of Hittite civilization by Hurrian ideas, which became pronounced in later times, was initiated during this period. Texts previously assigned to the late-13th-century kings Tudhaliyas (Tudkhaliash) IV and Arnuwandas III have been shown to belong to the reigns of their predecessors Tudhaliyas II (or I) and Arnuwandas I in the late 15th and early 14th centuries bce. Tudhaliyas II conquered Arzawa and Assuwa (later Asia) in the west and in the southeast captured and destroyed Aleppo, defeated Mitanni, and entered into an alliance with Kizzuwadna, which he later incorporated into his kingdom. In the north, however, access to the Black Sea was blocked by invasions of the Kaska (Kashku) tribes, and this threat was to continue into the reigns of his successors.

Tudhaliyas II was succeeded by his son Arnuwandas I, who was under attack from all directions: even Hattusas, the capital, was burned down. Arzawa became independent; letters to its king have been found in the archives at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt. Arnuwandas’ son Tudhaliyas III seems to have spent most of his reign campaigning to regain the lost territories.

The Hittite king Suppiluliumas I (Shuppiluliumash, Subbiluliuma) dominated the history of the Middle East during the 14th century bce, although the dates of his reign are in question. He was originally thought to have ascended the throne about 1380 and to have reigned for roughly four decades, but some scholars now argue for a much shorter reign, from about 1343 to either 1322 or 1318. The son of Tudhaliyas III, in whose company he had gained military experience before ascending the throne, Suppiluliumas spent the first few years of his reign consolidating the Hittite homeland and improving the defenses of Hattusas; it may have been at this time that the greatly extended circuit of city walls was built, enclosing an area of more than 300 acres (120 hectares). He then applied himself to the task of settling accounts with Mitanni, the principal enemy of his immediate predecessors. After an abortive attempt to approach Syria by the conventional route through the Taurus passes and Kizzuwadna, Suppiluliumas attempted a more carefully prepared attack from the rear by way of Malatya and the Euphrates valley. He met little resistance and was able to enter and sack the Mitannian capital, Wassukkani (possibly located near the head of the Khābūr River near modern Diyarbakır). West of the Euphrates, most of the North Syrian cities hastened to offer their submission. The king of Kadesh put up some resistance but was defeated, and the Hittite armies penetrated southward, almost to Damascus. The Egyptian allies of the Mitannian kingdom seem to have been indifferent to its wholesale subjugation; under the apostate pharaoh Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV; ruled c. 1353–36 bce) Egypt had temporarily lost interest in imperial defense. Treaties made after this brilliant expedition show, for instance, that Nuhassi (central Syria) and Amurru (including most of what is now Lebanon) and such cities as Aleppo and Alalakh then became part of the Hittite dominions. It is not easy to understand why Carchemish, which controlled the Euphrates crossings, was allowed to retain its independence and Wassukkani, somewhere to the east on the headwaters of the Khābūr River, to remain untenanted.

Suppiluliumas then returned to his capital, leaving his son Telipinus, known as Telipinus the Priest, to arrange the defense of the Syrian provinces. His task may have been complicated by a new situation that had arisen in the remnants of the Mitannian state. The Mitannian king, Tushratta, was assassinated, and his successor, King Artatama, unwilling to place any further reliance on Egypt, turned to Assyria for an alliance against the Hittites. Meanwhile, Suppiluliumas returned to complete his conquest of Syria, capturing Carchemish after an eight-day siege. Telipinus now became king of Aleppo and his brother, Piyasilis (Shar-Kushukh), king of Carchemish. It remained only for Suppiluliumas to obtain control over the old Mitannian capital at Wassukkani, which he did, installing a son of the murdered Tushratta as vassal ruler of a buffer state between himself and the Assyrians.

During this last campaign an incident occurred that illustrates the elevated status then accorded the Hittite king as a result of his conquests. While Suppiluliumas was encamped before Carchemish, a messenger arrived from the queen of Egypt with a proposal that he should send one of his sons to become her husband. Suppiluliumas agreed to her request and sent her one of his sons, but he was murdered when he reached Egypt. The identity of this queen is uncertain. She may have been Ankhesenamen (Ankhesenpaaten), the widow of Tutankhamen who was compelled to marry the ambitious courtier-priest Ay, thus legitimizing his usurpation of the throne. Alternatively, she may have been Meritaton, daughter of Akhenaton and widow of his successor Smenkhkare. Shortly afterward Suppiluliumas himself died of a pestilence. His eldest son and successor, Arnuwandas II, also died, and the throne descended to the young and inexperienced Mursilis II.

The first Hittite misfortune after the accession of Mursilis II was the loss of the small vassal kingdom based on Wassukkani, the last remnant of the once-powerful Mitannian state. It was invaded and occupied by the Assyrians under Ashur-uballiṭ I (c. 1354–18 bce), who thus was able to establish a frontier with Syria on the Euphrates. Carchemish and Aleppo, however, remained loyal to the Hittites, enabling Mursilis to face a new threat from his possessions in southwestern Anatolia. Arzawa, with its satellites Mira, Kuwaliya, Hapalla, and the “Land of the River Seha,” rose in revolt. A detailed account survives of the two-year campaign in which young Mursilis suppressed this insurrection, killing the Arzawan king and installing Hittite governors as rulers of the several kingdoms. Meanwhile, a threat from the north proved more difficult. The Kaska, who now inhabited the remote mountain valleys between the Hittite homeland and the Black Sea, seem to have been continually in revolt. Their tribal organization and guerrilla tactics prevented the Hittites from conclusive conquest of the country, despite yearly Hittite campaigns. Unrest in Kaska country seems also to have affected the rather nebulous state of Azzi-Hayasa, a client kingdom farther to the east on the upper Lycus River. Suppiluliumas had suffered a good deal of trouble from these people early in his reign, and in the seventh year of Mursilis’ reign they again revolted. The king, who was attending to his religious duties at Kummanni (Comana), entrusted their pacification to one of his generals. While the king was at Kummanni, he was joined by his brother Piyasilis, king of Carchemish, who was taken ill and died; his death sparked off a revolt in Syria supported by Egypt and Assyria, but the appearance of the king himself at the head of his imperial army proved sufficient to suppress it. Mursilis reigned for 25 years (c. 1345–20 bce, or possibly from 1321 or 1317) and bequeathed to his successor, Muwatallis, a substantial empire, securely surrounded by dependent states.

Early in the reign of Muwatallis, Egypt, under its 19th-dynasty kings, began to recover its imperialist ambitions. Seti I (c. 1290–79 bce) led his army into Canaan to restore the system of colonial administration, which had been relinquished in the time of Akhenaton, and advanced as far as Kadesh (modern Tall al-Nabi Mind) on the Orontes River. A confrontation between the two powers was avoided until the end of his reign. On the accession of Ramses II in 1279 bce, however, a clash between them became imminent, and Muwatallis enlisted the support of his allies. (The Hittite records at this time are fragmentary, but Egyptian scribes mention for the first time the Dardanians, familiar from Homer’s Iliad, and the Philistines.) The Hittite and Egyptian armies met at Kadesh about 1275 bce, and the battle that followed is one of the first in history of which a tactical description has survived. The Hittite specialist O.R. Gurney summarizes the Egyptian text as follows:

The Hittite army based on Kadesh succeeded in completely concealing its position from the Egyptian scouts; and as the unsuspecting Egyptians advanced in marching order towards the city and started to pitch their camp, a strong detachment of Hittite chariotry passed round unnoticed behind the city, crossed the river Orontes, and fell upon the centre of the Egyptian column with shattering force. The Egyptian army would have been annihilated, had not a detached Egyptian regiment arrived most opportunely from another direction and caught the Hittites unawares as they were pillaging the camp. This lucky chance enabled the Egyptian king to save the remainder of his forces and to represent the battle as a great victory. (From O.R. Gurney, The Hittites, Penguin Books, 1952.)

Evidently, the battle was inconclusive, as Muwatallis subsequently advanced as far south as Damascus, and the Hittites maintained their ascendancy in Syria. The king then found it necessary to transfer his residence to Dattassa, a city somewhere in the Taurus area, and he assigned the government of his northern provinces to his brother Hattusilis. When Muwatallis died and was succeeded by his son, Urhi-Teshub (Mursilis III), the boy’s uncle became a rival to the throne and, after a seven-year quarrel, forced him into exile in Syria.

The accession of Hattusilis III about 1266 bce inaugurated a period of relative peace and prosperity. Relations steadily improved between the Hittites and Egypt, perhaps as a result of their mutual interest in protecting themselves against Assyria. In 1259 Hattusilis negotiated a famous treaty with Ramses II, assuring the peace and security of the Levant state. Thirteen years later, a further bond was created by the marriage of his daughter to the pharaoh. This girl’s mother was Puduhepa (Pudu-Kheba), the daughter of a Kizzuwadnian priest, whom Hattusilis had married. Puduhepa was evidently a woman of strong character who governed alongside her husband; together they reoccupied and rebuilt the old capital city at Hattusas, ordered the recopying of the national archives, and instituted constitutional reforms. Among the many surviving texts from this reign, one appears to be the king’s personal apologia justifying his seizure of the throne and his displacement of Urhi-Teshub, the legitimate heir.

Urhi-Teshub during this period appears to have been plotting with Kadashman-Enlil II, Kassite king of Babylonia (c. 1264–55 bce), and this was probably responsible for deteriorating relations between the two kings. Kurunta, another son of Muwatallis, was installed as Great King of a state centred on the city of Tarhuntassa, probably southwest of Konya, with equal status to the ruler of Carchemish; the city would have served as a base for operations farther west. This may be connected with events referred to in a document known as the Tawagalawas Letter that describes a Hittite campaign in the Lukka lands and the activities there of a certain Piyamaradus. Piyamaradus used Millawanda (possibly Miletus) as his base; that city was a dependency of Ahhiyawa, a large and formidable country, the identity and geographic location of which have been the subject of prolonged controversy. Some scholars identify the Ahhiyawans with the Achaeans of Homer, or at least with some subdivision of the Mycenaean world, while others place them on Rhodes or on the Anatolian mainland north of Assuwa, identifying the Ahhiyawans as ancestors of the Trojans.

After the death of Hattusilis, his son Tudhaliyas IV (c. 1240–10 bce) extended his father’s reforms to the structure and institutions of the Hittite state religion. In this he was much influenced by his mother, Puduhepa, who became coregent with Tudhaliyas. It was probably during their reign that the rock reliefs depicting a Hurrian pantheon were carved at Yazılıkaya, near Boğazköy. Tudhaliyas engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to curb the growing power of Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (c. 1233–1197 bce), which led to rebellion in Syria (Ugarsit). A bronze tablet excavated at Boğazköy in 1986 records a treaty between Tudhaliyas IV and his cousin Kurunta of Tarhuntassa, who later may have rebelled.

Little is known about Arnuwandas III and Suppiluliumas II, who succeeded Tudhaliyas, and these final episodes in the saga of Hittite history are difficult to reconstruct. To the latter reign can be dated a maritime expedition, perhaps involving Cyprus, and the earliest Hieroglyphic Hittite inscriptions of any length. The Phrygian invasion of Asia Minor must already have started, and throughout the Middle East a mass movement of peoples had begun that was destined not only to destroy the Hittite empire but also to sweep the Hittites out of their homeland on the Anatolian plateau and into Syria.

Anatolia from the end of the Hittite Empire to the Achaemenian Period

With the end of the Hittite empire, Anatolia and the whole of the ancient Middle East were severely shaken. Migratory groups of the Sea Peoples moving along the south coast of Anatolia and the seashore of Syria and Palestine caused great havoc and upheaval. The Sea Peoples followed the ancient trade route between the Greek Mycenaean world and the coastal cities of Syria, the commercial centres of the Middle East. The geographic characteristics of Anatolia facilitated the west-east connection, while the mountain ranges along the northern Black Sea coast and the southern Mediterranean hampered the traffic between north and south.

Anatolia and northern Syria, c. 1180 bc to the 6th century bc.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Anatolia functioned as a bridge connecting the Greek world in the West with the great empires of the East. When migrating groups passed over this bridge, some of their people often remained and settled, as had occurred when the Hittites entered Anatolia. The Phrygians arrived in a similar manner, either in connection with or after the fall of the Hittite empire. The newcomers readily adapted themselves to an existing cultural pattern, and the geography of the country gave rise to the growth of a great number of small local powers and petty chieftains.

Written records are few for the period between c. 1200 and 1000 bce, and the picture is not always clear, but archaeological evidence sheds some light on the new political divisions that emerged in Anatolia after the breakup of the Hittite empire. A number of Greek city-states were established on the western (Aegean) coast, among them Miletus, Priene, and Ephesus. The southern part of that area became known as Ionia, the northern part as Aeolis. The early history of those cities is known mainly from archaeological finds and from scattered remarks in the writings of later Greek historians. Most of western and central Anatolia was occupied by the Phrygians. In the northeast were the Kaska, who probably had participated in the dismemberment of the Hittite empire. In the southeast were the Luwians, related culturally and ethnically to the Hittites. They were organized in a number of small neo-Hittite states (including Carchemish, Malatya, Tabal, and Que) that extended into northern Syria. For the eastern region, archaeological evidence is supplemented by Assyrian texts and by about 150 neo-Hittite Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions.

Phrygia from c. 1180 to 700 bce

The early Phrygians probably were not organized in one strong and centrally governed kingdom. Their origins and the affiliations of their language are still enshrouded in mystery. Greek tradition—still in many cases the best source available—usually dates their migration into Anatolia from Europe about the period of the Trojan War (early 12th century bce), and the Greeks were convinced that the Phrygians came from Macedonia and Thrace. Thus, the Phrygian language once was believed to be related to Thracian or Illyrian. Most linguists, however, now view Phrygian as a separate Indo-European language that shares a number of isoglosses with ancient Greek.

Anatolia and northern Syria, c. 1180 bc to the 6th century bc.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

From the middle of the 8th century bce, the Phrygians were almost certainly the people called Mushki by the Assyrians, though it is possible that the Assyrians had earlier used that name as a label for northern tribes of various affiliations, in which case the name might also include newly arrived Armenians. The area occupied by the Phrygians in that early period (12th–9th century bce) is uncertain; many authorities believe they were confined to the area west of the Kızıl River. Parts of the former Hittite capital, Boğazköy, were reoccupied well before 800 bce. The new settlement was an open unfortified collection of small, often one-room, houses. The occupants apparently were dissociated from and unaware of the great Hittite past, but it is not certain that they were Phrygians.

By the 8th century the Phrygians had formed a centrally organized kingdom in the west with its centres at Gordium and Midas City. Their three main areas of settlement were the hilly country between modern Eskişehir and Afyon; the central regions around their capital, Gordium; and the region around Ancyra (modern Ankara), where Phrygian tombs and architectural remains of the 8th–6th century have been found. To the east, settlements such as Alaca Hüyük, Boğazköy-Hattusas, and Pazarlı temporarily belonged to the Phrygian sphere of influence. Alişar Hüyük and Çalapverdi were in a kind of no-man’s-land between the Phrygians and their Luwian neighbours to the east. The Kaska by that time probably had penetrated into the region between the Kızıl and the upper Euphrates River. At the time of its zenith in the late 8th century, the Phrygian kingdom made up so large a part of Anatolia that geographically it can in a sense be characterized as the political heir to the Hittite empire. The invasion of the Cimmerians from beyond the Caucasus at the beginning of the 7th century bce, however, prevented the full realization of that possibility. Excavations in Gordium and in the neighbouring burial tumuli provide evidence of the great wealth of the Phrygian rulers, reflected in the Greek legends about the Phrygian king Midas, while excavations in Midas City provide insight into later Phrygian culture.

Phrygia’s relations with Assyria are attested to by Assyrian documents. A letter of King Sargon II (ruled 721–705 bce) to the Assyrian provincial governor of Que, apparently dating to 709 bce, indicates a temporary collaboration between the two powers on an equal basis. Assyro-Phrygian relations, however, were not always friendly; between 715 and 709 bce the provincial governor of Que twice fought the Phrygians before finally achieving success in 709. Sargon II himself had undertaken a campaign against them in 715. Between 718 and 709, a number of East Anatolian and North Syrian Luwian princes sought help from Phrygia in a failed attempt to protect themselves from Assyrian expansionism. The Luwian states, however, were defeated and turned into Assyrian dependencies. According to the official Assyrian interpretation, King Midas in 709 sent an embassy to Sargon offering submission. During the reign of Sargon’s successor, Sennacherib (704–681), the Cimmerians swept through Anatolia, bringing an end to Phrygia as a major political power. Tradition has it that Midas then committed suicide, and some archaeologists have tried to identify a royal tomb excavated at Gordium as that of the legendary king. Evidence of the Cimmerian destruction of the city is unmistakable. After about 690 the site was abandoned; late in the 7th or early in the 6th century bce it was reinhabited and a new city was built. That late Gordium functioned as the centre of a provincial district, probably limited to the upper valley of the Sangarius River.

Excavations at Gordium show that the building and fortification, woodcutting, metalwork, and ivory carving techniques of the Phrygians had reached a high level of perfection. The excellence of Phrygian textiles is known from ancient writings. Cauldrons with bullhead attachments show the influence of Urartian craftsmanship, but the differences are significant enough to indicate an independent local school of bronze working. Other objects reflect the influence of Assyria. Bronze fibulae (clasps), traditionally held to have been a Phrygian invention, have been found in great numbers. Evidence that the Phrygians, through King Midas, had contacts with Greek coastal cities of western Anatolia is provided by Greek sources, which also show that Midas was married to a Greek woman from Aeolic Cyme and was the first non-Greek ruler to send offerings to the oracle of Delphi.

Two main types of pottery have been found at sites associated with Phrygia, one polychrome with geometric designs and the other mainly gray or red monochrome. Some archaeologists believe that the polychrome variety, first found in eastern Anatolia and usually called Early Phrygian or Alişar IV, is actually Luwian; it is certain that there was extensive cultural contact between the eastern Phrygians and their Luwian neighbours. Geometric patterns typical of Phrygian sculpture appear in Luwian rock reliefs of İvriz Harabesi and Bor. Conversely, Luwian influence clearly is present in Phrygian sculptures found at Ankara. There is a cultural, if not a political, division in this period between more purely native Phrygians in the west and the eastern Phrygians, with their neo-Hittite affiliations.

Before the middle of the 8th century bce, the Phrygians adopted an alphabetic script ultimately derived from the Phoenician alphabet. There is some question as to whether the Phrygians acquired their alphabet from a Greek source in the west or south or whether the Phrygian form of the alphabet was the parent of the Greek. The first supposition seems more likely, since the Greeks probably had more contact with the seagoing Phoenicians than did the inland Phrygians. The oldest Phrygian inscriptions found at Gordium date from the second half of the 8th century bce. Another inscription at Tyana from the same general period, but perhaps slightly later, seems to refer to King Midas. His name, or possibly his title, is mentioned on the stone. Toward the end of the 8th century bce, Büyükkale, the citadel of Boğazköy-Hattusas, undoubtedly was a Phrygian settlement. In the early 7th century, perhaps as a result of the Cimmerian invasion, a new system of fortification was added. Later in that century the settlement extended beyond the citadel to cover most of the area of the former Hittite capital. The Phrygian character of this city is clearly shown by graffiti in Phrygian script and especially by a cult image of Cybele, the main Phrygian goddess, found in a niche at the southeast gate of the citadel. Cybele, the “Great Mother of the Gods,” was similar to the goddess known to the Luwians as Kubaba, who played an important role in the religion of Carchemish. The importance of Cybele seems to have increased during the Phrygian period, and the statue of her at Boğazköy seems to show the influence of 6th-century Greek art, as do comparable cult statues from Gordium, Ayaş (west of Ankara), and Ankara.

The neo-Hittite states from c. 1180 to 700 bce

The Dark Age that followed the fall of the Hittite empire lasted until between 1000 and 900 bce. Carchemish (on the modern border between Turkey and Syria) and Milid (Arslantepe, near modern Malatya) were the most-important Luwian strongholds of that intermediary age, and both were characterized by the same interaction of Luwian and Hurrian influences that had characterized the New Empire period. The viceroyalty of Carchemish was headed by a side branch of the Hittite royal family and persisted without interruption from empire times into the Dark Age. Kings of the region refer to an ancestor called “Kuzi-Tessub, Great King, Hero of Carchemish”; that name appears on a royal seal impression found at Lidar Hüyük and in two of the latest texts from the Hittite capital dating to the period before his rule. Reliable evidence concerning both Carchemish and Milid is provided by the historical texts of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I (ruled c. 1115–1077 bce). Reliefs from Milid, depicting the king of that city making offerings to the gods, show a marked similarity to earlier Hittite reliefs at Yazılıkaya and Alaca Hüyük.

Anatolia and northern Syria, c. 1180 bc to the 6th century bc.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

During the 10th century, Aramaean infiltration strengthened and transformed the indigenous Semitic population of Syria; the Aramaeans also penetrated into Luwian areas and sometimes managed to dominate them. Til Barsib (modern Tall al-Ahmar) in North Syria was an important Luwian stronghold taken by the Aramaeans in the second half of the 10th century. It became the centre of the Aramaean kingdom Bit-Adini until it was conquered by the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III (858–824). Samal, in the Nur (Amanos) Mountains of southern Turkey, became Aramaean about 920 bce. Arpad fell shortly after 900 and afterward belonged to the Aramaean state Bit-Agusi. Still later Ḥamāh—the southernmost Luwian city—became an important Aramaean power in combination with Aleppo. Aleppo, already a famous capital in the 2nd millennium bce, probably had a substantial Luwian population. The state of Patina (Pattina; formerly called Hattina and roughly equivalent to Amqa), which apparently managed to maintain its Luwian character for a very long time, occupied the region at the mouth of the Orontes River, on a site near later Antioch. A great deal more is known about the neo-Hittite states of Syria in the 10th century than about those of inner Anatolia, because much of the extant source material is Assyrian and the Assyrian kings had not yet penetrated into Cilicia and Cappadocia.

Til Barsib and the kingdom of Gurgum (capital at Kahramanmaraş) have provided texts from before 900 bce. Most important, however, are the texts from Carchemish, where the subject matter tends to be more diverse than in texts of the Hittite imperial age, with military exploits added to the traditional religious subjects. The art of the neo-Hittite states, perhaps under Mesopotamian influence, is similarly concerned with worldly affairs, frequently depicting hunting scenes and chariot fighting. However, the possibility of a reversed influence in the 10th and early 9th centuries bce—of the Syro-Hittite world in the west on Assyria to the east—has been proposed. The principal deities of Carchemish were the Luwian storm god Tarhunt (Tarhunzas); Karhuhas, protector of nature’s forces; and Kubaba, the “queen of Carchemish.” The sacred animals of Tarhunt, Karhuhas, and Kubaba were the bull, the stag, and the lion, respectively. A number of titles used by the kings of Carchemish (e.g., Great King and Hero) clearly are relics of a more-glorious Hittite past, but one (tarwanas, conventionally translated as “judge” or “ruler”) is entirely new and may reflect a new political phenomenon. Neo-Hittite kings of the 9th century often bore the names of their imperial predecessors; an inscription at Boybeypınarı mentions both a Suppiluliumas and a Hattusilis; at Patina, kings with the names Labarnas and Suppiluliumas are attested to by Assyrian sources; and during the long reign of a well-documented dynasty in Gurgum two kings were called Muwatallis.

Tiglath-pileser I of Assyria had invaded Syria about 1100 bce. In the 9th century his successors renewed Assyrian attempts at westward expansion. Ashurnasirpal II (883–859) received tribute from Carchemish and penetrated into Patina, reaching the Lebanon Mountains and the Mediterranean and returning to Mesopotamia by way of the Nur Mountains. Ambassadors from the Luwian regions of Carchemish, Patina, Gurgum, and Milid were among the foreign guests who took part in the celebrations for the inauguration of his new palace in Nimrūd (879 bce). Ashurnasirpal II and his successor, Shalmaneser III, both attached great value to the fact that they were able to reach the Mediterranean, but they were unable to permanently subdue the Aramaeans in southern Syria. Included in the Luwian-Aramaean coalition that confronted Shalmaneser III at Qarqār in 853 were forces from the Luwian states of Anatolia, among them Que and Hilakku, the mountainous region to the north of Que. Shalmaneser III made a serious effort to establish Assyrian control over that area; he led five expeditions against Que, one against Tabal, and another to Milid, where the tribute of Tabal was brought to him.

At that time Tuwatis, the king of Tabal (roughly coinciding with the Hittite Lower Land of the empire period, including Lycaonia and Cappadocia to the south of the Kızıl), ruled over at least 20 vassal kings. Apparently, however, Assyria’s great military efforts in that period overtaxed its strength. Near the end of Shalmaneser’s reign a rebellion broke out, and it took more than half a century before the Assyrians were able to renew their western expansion. Hieroglyphic inscriptions from Ḥamāh, the most southerly Luwian stronghold, show that the ethnic situation in that region was extraordinarily complicated. In a Luwian text from the mid-9th century a king with the Hurrian name Urhilinas—one of the leaders of the coalition against Assyria in 853—records that he has built a throne and erected a monument for the Semitic goddess Bahalatis. Another contemporary of Shalmaneser III was Halpa-Runtiyas of Patina, whose name has also been found in the Hieroglyphic Luwian texts of Tell Tayinat and has helped in the dating of that site. It seems likely that Assyria’s contacts with Que, Hilakku, and Tabal, though a threat to their independence, may also have been a strong stimulus to their internal development.

A great many texts from the various Luwian centres in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia shed light on the history of the 8th and early 7th centuries bce. One of the most important of those texts is a bilingual (Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician) inscription found at Karatepe; comparison with the Phoenician version greatly increased scholars’ understanding of Luwian hieroglyphics.

The temporary setback in Assyria’s westward expansion in the latter part of the 9th century provided a brief respite for the neo-Hittite states. That phase ended with the rise of the state of Urartu in the 8th century, at first a minor kingdom centred on Lake Van but later extended to include parts of what are now Armenia, Iranian Azerbaijan, and Iraqi Kurdistan. Entrenched in a mountainous country and well organized, with provincial capitals and a network of small fortress cities, Urartu resisted aggression from the Assyrians in the south.

Urartian culture was based upon that of Mesopotamia, yet its architecture shows qualities that some consider superior to that of the Assyrians: the monotonous mud-brick facades of the southern plains and valleys are replaced in Urartu by a pattern of crenellated stone towers and buttresses adapted to the natural beauty of a rocky landscape. The excavation of two fortress cities in Armenia (Karmirblur and Arin Berd) and many others in Anatolia has also revealed some unique features of Urartian architecture, notably a standard form of temple that included square, towerlike building anticipating the temple-towers of Achaemenian times in Persia.

Urartu became a serious threat to Assyria’s northern border as it expanded in a westerly and southwesterly direction, eventually sharing a common border with Phrygia in northern Anatolia and asserting its hegemony over the Luwians. Milid was subdued by the Urartian kings Argishti I (780–756) and Sarduri II (755–735); the latter also conquered Kustaspi, king of Kummuhu (Commagene), and forced him to pay tribute about 745. During the period of Assyrian weakness a king named Asti-Ruwas ruled over Carchemish. He is not mentioned in the Assyrian documentation, which is also lacking for the following two generations, but his existence is known from a few Hieroglyphic Luwian texts. The sons of Asti-Ruwas are thought to have been reared and protected by a “guardian” called Yariris (formerly known as Araras), who was once believed to be a usurper. In the introduction to one of his texts, Yariris emphasizes his diplomatic relations with what evidently are the states of Egypt and Babylon as well as with the Mysians (on the northwest coast of Anatolia), the Muski (Phrygians), and the “Syrians” (either Aramaeans or Urartians). In another text he boasts of his knowledge of 12 languages in four writing systems, Hieroglyphic Luwian, “Syrian” (either Aramaic or Urartian), Assyrian cuneiform, and “Taiman,” an as yet undetermined writing system. All this points to an active foreign policy in a world that is characterized by a fundamental unity in spite of political and linguistic distinctions. Archaeological evidence demonstrating the existence of extensive international trade supports this conclusion.

Under Tiglath-pileser III (746–727), the Assyrians reentered the political scene in the west. After Urartu had suffered severe setbacks, first in 743 (in a battle in southern Kummuhu) and then in 735 (when the Assyrian king penetrated into the heart of Urartu), the Luwian and Aramaean kings began to suspect that Urartu was doomed. In 743 Milid, Kummuhu, Arpad, and Gurgum still belonged to the Urartian sphere of influence, but in 740 Tiglath-pileser conquered Arpad, and a large group of princes, among them the kings of Kummuhu, Que, Carchemish (where a King Pisiris reigned), and Gurgum, offered their submission to the Assyrians. King Tutammu of Patina, who had been strategically safe as long as Arpad had not been conquered, also was defeated and his land turned into an Assyrian province. In 738 Samal, Milid, Kaska, Tabal, and Tuwanuwa (classical Tyana) came to terms with the Assyrian king. The Assyrian influence again had reached the inner parts of Anatolia. In 732 King Wasu-Sarmas of Tabal was deposed by the Assyrians, and it seems probable that Samal and Que were incorporated into Assyrian provincial territory during the reign of Shalmaneser V (726–722). During the reign of his successor, Sargon II (721–705), Ḥamāh (720), Carchemish (717), Tabal (713), and Kummuhu (together with Milid in 708) also ceased to exist as separate states, bringing the era of the independent neo-Hittite states to an end. Shortly afterward the Cimmerians destroyed neighbouring Phrygia.

The Cimmerians, Lydia, and Cilicia, c. 700–547 bce

During the late 8th and early 7th centuries bce, the Assyrian kings had to fight various wars to maintain their positions in southeastern Anatolia. In 705 bce Sargon II himself undertook a campaign in the region, and the Assyrian king was killed in battle, an unprecedented occurrence. In 704 or 703 and again in 696, Sennacherib (ruled 704–681) sent troops to Que and Hilakku to quell local revolts. On the whole, the Assyrians were not completely successful: though Que remained in their possession, they lost their grip on the more northerly regions of Tabal, Hilakku, and Meliddu.

Anatolia and northern Syria, c. 1180 bc to the 6th century bc.

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

After the Cimmerians sacked Gordium, the Phrygian capital, in 696–695, they withdrew to the countryside and confined themselves to a mostly nomadic existence in western Anatolia. No habitation levels or sites in Anatolia have been assigned to Cimmerian occupation; according to the Greek historian Herodotus, they settled in the area of Sinop on the Black Sea. Herodotus may be right, for that same general area supported the Kaskan nomads of the 2nd millennium bce. Many scholars have concluded from classical sources that a second wave of Cimmerians entered Anatolia from the west and that these western Cimmerians were reinforced by Thracian invaders.

Another new people that appeared in western Anatolia about that time were the Lydians. Their capital and earliest settlement was at Sardis, near modern İzmir on the Aegean coast. According to ancient writers, they were the first people to coin money. Their ruling house in the 7th century were the Mermnads, founded by Gyges (c. 680–652). The presence of Greek pottery in early layers at Sardis testifies to Lydian contact with the Greeks in that period. The Lydian language is classified in the Anatolian branch of Indo-European and resembled Hittite, Luwian, and Palaic.

In 679 Esarhaddon of Assyria (680–669) defeated the Cimmerians under King Teuspa in the region of Hubusna (probably Hupisna-Cybistra), but the area was not pacified. In the same year Esarhaddon’s troops also fought a war in Hilakku, and a few years later they punished the Anatolian prince of Kundu (Cyinda) and Sissu (Sisium, modern Sis), who had allied himself with Phoenician rebels against Assyrian rule. The regions to the north of the Cilician plain repeatedly caused trouble for Assyria. Early in the reign of Ashurbanipal (668–627), however, another Cimmerian invasion threatened the Anatolian states, arousing such alarm that not only Tabal and Hilakku but even Gyges of Lydia sought help from the Assyrians. According to the Assyrian texts, the god Ashur appeared to Gyges in a dream, advising him to turn to Ashurbanipal for help. On the same day that Gyges sent his messengers to Ashurbanipal, the Cimmerian invaders were repulsed. When Gyges afterward failed to make these temporary relations permanent and instead formed an alliance with the Egyptian king Psamtik, however, Ashurbanipal prayed that “Gyges’ body would be thrown down before his enemy,” and indeed Gyges was killed during a second attack in 652 in which Sardis, with the exception of the citadel, was taken by the Cimmerians. (Excavators of Sardis have found a destruction layer that appears to be associated with this event.)

Herodotus reports that, like the Phrygian Midas before him, Gyges dedicated offerings to the temple at Delphi but also that he conducted campaigns against his Greek neighbours at Miletus and Smyrna (İzmir) and conquered the Greek city of Colophon. Ardys, his successor on the Lydian throne (651–c. 615), again attacked Miletus and took Priene. During his reign Sardis was taken a second time, that time by the Treres, a Thracian tribe that operated in close connection with the Cimmerians. According to Assyrian sources, Ardys restored Lydia’s diplomatic relations with Assyria. The Cimmerian forces were finally beaten by the Assyrians in Cilicia between 637 and 626. At that time the Cimmerian leader was Tugdamme (Lygdamis), who is identified in Greek tradition as the victor over Sardis in 652 and is also said to have attacked Ephesus. A nonaggression pact signed between Ashurbanipal and Tugdamme, if correctly dated after the mid-650s, confirms the Greek data concerning Tugdamme’s involvement in the events of 652—the capture of Sardis and the death of Gyges. The pact ascribes the initiative to Tugdamme, who may have wished to seek a guarantee against Assyrian intervention. The final defeat of Tugdamme is known both from Assyrian sources and from the later Greek geographer Strabo. The Lydian kings Sadyattes (died c. 610) and Alyattes (ruled c. 610–c. 560) continued their attacks on Greek Miletus. Under Alyattes Lydia reached its commercial and political zenith. He attacked Clazomenae, took Smyrna in 590, and subjected many inland regions to Lydian rule. The war described by Herodotus between the Lydians and the Medes, expanding out of Iran in the east, probably occurred between 590 and 585. From then on, the Kızıl River marked the border between the two powers, Lydia on the west and Media (later Persia) on the east.

The growth of an independent Cilicia was one of the most-important developments of the last decades of the 7th century bce. It did not include Que, which came under the control of the Neo-Babylonian empire after the fall of Assyria in 612. During the conflict between Lydia and the Medes, independent Cilicia and Babylonia, as two important nonaligned powers of the region, acted jointly as mediators. The next and last king of Lydia was Croesus (c. 560–546). Famous for his wealth, he ranks with Midas among the Anatolian rulers who made a deep impression on the imagination of the Greeks. Like Midas, Croesus sent offerings to Greek sanctuaries, including those of Delphi, Miletus, and Ephesus. A number of the relief-decorated pillars of the world-famous Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, were presented by him. Stories about his fabulous wealth find some support in the archaeological discovery at Sardis of gold-refining installations from the time of Alyattes and Croesus.

Croesus completed the work of his predecessors by subduing the Greek cities of Anatolia. He planned to conquer the Greeks of the Aegean islands as well, but the growing threat from the Persians, who had replaced the Medes as the dominant Iranian power, forced him to make an alliance with them instead. According to Herodotus, Croesus ruled all Anatolia west of the Kızıl, although the Greek cities probably enjoyed a considerable measure of autonomy. Having secured the support of Egypt, Babylonia, and Sparta (Cilicia remained neutral), Croesus decided to make war against the Persians. Taking the initiative, he crossed the Kızıl into Persian territory in 547. The parties fought a battle in the region of Pteria (probably Boğazköy-Hattusas). Although the battle was indecisive, Croesus decided to return home to his capital, intending to reinforce his troops with allied forces and to renew the war in the following spring. Cyrus II the Great, the Persian king, unexpectedly turned after him and took him by surprise. After a short siege, Sardis was taken and Persian hegemony established over Anatolia.

Greek colonies on the Anatolian coasts, c. 1180–547 bce

Before the Greek migrations that followed the end of the Bronze Age (c. 1200 bce), probably the only Greek-speaking communities on the west coast of Anatolia were Mycenaean settlements at Iasus and Müskebi on the Halicarnassus peninsula and walled Mycenaean colonies at Miletus and Colophon. The major Greek settlement of Anatolia’s west coast belongs to the Dark Age (c. 1200–c. 1000). In contrast to the at best sporadic colonization of the Mycenaean period, the movement has all the characteristics of a migration. Aeolian territory stretched north of the Gediz (Hermus) River up to Pitane, with Cyme as the most-important settlement. According to Herodotus, the Aeolians (perhaps coming from Boeotia and Thessaly or, more generally, from the eastern part of mainland Greece) once formed a league of 12 cities corresponding to those of Ionia, but their number was reduced to 11 by the Ionian capture of Smyrna. The 12 Ionian cities of historical times were the isles of Chios and Samos and the cities of Phocaea, Clazomenae, Erythrae, Teos, Lebedus, Colophon, Ephesus, Priene, Myus, and Miletus. Among those, Ephesus (as the successor to Apasa, capital of the Luwian Late Bronze Age state of Arzawa) and Miletus had by far the best claims to historical fame. It is probable that the original number of towns of the 10th and 9th centuries was far larger. There may be a considerable element of truth in the tradition that identifies Athens as the departure point of the Ionians. Dorian Greeks settled on the Aegean islands of Rhodes and Cos before 900. Cnidus and Halicarnassus subsequently were founded on the peninsulas of western Caria. The Dorians formed a league of six (later five) cities. The Troas (Troy) region was colonized from Mytilene on the island of Lesbos early in the 8th century. By the 8th century the city league (a group of cities with a common devotion to the same sanctuary) had become the normal political institution among the Aeolians, Ionians, and Dorians. A certain measure of urbanization, which was dependent on the development of both local industry and foreign trade, preceded the development of these larger units.

Anatolia and northern Syria, c. 1180 bc to the 6th century bc.

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Much less is known about the non-Greek populations of the interior. The Mysians, an aboriginal people of the valley of the Bakir (Caïcus) River and the mountains to the north, are mentioned in an 8th-century Carchemish inscription. The Carians, from the hinterland of Miletus and Halicarnassus, enter history as mercenaries in the service of the Egyptian king Psamtik, along with their Ionian neighbours, in the 7th century bce. Of the Lycians, to the east of Caria, nothing definite is known before the 6th century, though archaeological evidence shows that the Greeks had commercial contacts with Lycia as early as about 700. Curiously, it was under the aegis of Persian rule that Greek civilization penetrated into this region. Among the peoples subject to Croesus, Herodotus mentions the Pamphylians, whose country lay in the south, between Lycia and Cilicia. A Neo-Babylonian text of the mid-6th century confirms this, indicating that the Lydian borderline was situated at Sallune (classical Selinus, the most westerly coastal city of Cilicia). There is a remote possibility that post-Mycenaean Greeks may have had contacts with Pamphylia and Cilicia in the Dark Age after the fall of the Hittite empire, since in later Greek traditions the name of the Greek hero Mopsus—who figures in the legends surrounding the Trojan War—is associated with the foundation of settlements in both Pamphylia and Cilicia. The appearance of the house of Muksas (Phoenician: Mups) in the Karatepe bilingual inscription has suggested that there may be some historical basis for these traditions, which seem to be a heritage common to both the Greeks and the original Anatolian population. Archaeological finds indicate considerable Greek colonizing activity on the south coast of Anatolia in the 8th century bce and on the north coast in the 7th century. From the mid-8th century bce, Greek merchants were active on the Cilician coast. Evidence for that can be found in inscriptions of Sargon II, according to which merchant activities there began about a generation before his time. Greek place-names such as Anchiale and Pityoussa occur repeatedly in Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian texts of the 7th and 6th centuries bce relating to the south coast of Anatolia. The North Syrian harbour of al-Mīnaʾ was also of great commercial importance to the Greeks. It is likely that Urartian and other western Asian influences visible in the art of the Greeks and the Italian Etruscans were the result of such commercial contacts. The neo-Hittite state of Patina, located on the seacoast around al-Mīnaʾ, probably played an important role in that respect. The two main Ionian cities were Ephesus and Miletus; Miletus was very active in colonization, whereas at Ephesus, where the surrounding country produced enough grain and raw materials for the use of the city, there was less pressure for emigration and the founding of colonies. In the early 7th century the Milesians settled Abydos and Cyzicus in the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) region; Greek tradition suggests that the Lydian king Gyges collaborated in the foundation of Abydos. Dascylium was named for Gyges’ father and might be a foundation of the same period. On the Black Sea coast, Sinop (founded c. 630) was another colony of Miletus. Destruction layers in the excavations of Miletus, Ephesus, and Smyrna, dating from the mid-7th century, suggest that the Ionian cities suffered heavily from the Cimmerian invasion. By the mid-6th century the cities had all been subjected to Lydian rule.

Anatolia in the Achaemenian and Hellenistic periods

Diversity of cultural influences

Between 546 and 334 bce, Anatolia was dominated politically by the Achaemenian Empire of Persia. Culturally, however, Greek influence continued to be strong and even increased. The coastal regions of Caria and Lycia and, farther east, Pamphylia and Cilicia were Hellenized to a considerable degree under the aegis of Persian rule. At the same time, Persian cultural influence penetrated the regions of Armenia, Pontus, Cappadocia, and Commagene. The Persian deities Mithra and Anahita were honoured in Armenia. In Cappadocia, the influence of Persia is clearly visible in the names of the local rulers and in religious practices reported by classical authors. The religious life of eastern Anatolia during that period was characterized by a blend of Persian, Greek, and indigenous Anatolian elements. The indigenous Luwian groups maintained their linguistic and cultural independence most clearly in isolated areas such as Lycia and western Cilicia, but they are also recognizable in other southern provinces such as Pamphylia, Pisidia, and Lycaonia. The Persian influence was strong in the northeastern city of Dascylium, an originally Lydian settlement that was chosen to be the administrative centre of the satrapy (province) of Hellespontine Phrygia. Aramaic was the official language in the western parts of the Achaemenian Empire, and Aramaic inscriptions in stone and on coins are relatively numerous for Anatolia in the 4th century bce. The Lydian and Phrygian languages continued to be used in their original homelands. The changing nomenclature and boundaries of satrapies and kingdoms throughout that general period present a confusing picture. Under the Persian king Darius I (ruled 522–486) Anatolia was originally divided into five regions: Armina (Armenia), Katpatuka (Cappadocia, including the territories of the Hellespont), Sea Peoples (the south coast, including Cyprus), Sparda (Lydia), and Yauna (the west coast of Anatolia).

The Anatolian Greeks in the Achaemenian period

Of the Anatolian Greek cities, only Miletus had chosen the Persian side in the struggle with Lydia. A number of the others were subjected to Persian rule by force. During the ensuing period, many of these Greek towns maintained a semiautonomous status while recognizing Achaemenian overlordship. Outside the cities, occupation forces and military colonies preserved law and order. In 499, however, Histiaeus, the Greek ruler of Miletus, led a revolt against Persia. That Ionian revolt was the opening phase of the Greco-Persian Wars. Although the rebels found wide support in the Greek cities of the Propontis region, at the Bosporus, and in Caria, Lycia, and Cyprus, they lost the decisive sea battle at Lade in 495 bce. In the following year Miletus, the heart of the insurrection, was taken and destroyed. In the last administrative division of satrapies under Darius I, Karka (Caria) was added; apparently it had been brought under stronger control on account of its support for the Greek cause. During the Greco-Persian Wars, the Anatolian Greeks were compelled to contribute troops and ships to the Persian forces.

After the Persian failure to subjugate Greece, the Athenians succeeded in pushing back the Persian sphere of influence from many of the coastal districts of Anatolia. A number of cities on the south coast joined the Athenian-dominated Delian League. During the final phases of the Peloponnesian War (431–404), Persia gave support to the Spartan cause. In 411 Tissaphernes, satrap in Sardis, concluded a treaty with Sparta in the name of the Persian king in which the Persians promised the Spartans both financial and naval support; all the Greek cities of Anatolia were to return to the Persian sphere. In spite of the fact that the growing internal weakness of their empire (and perhaps diplomatic constraints) prevented the Persians from exercising their full rights under this treaty, Sparta repudiated it and backed Ionia in its conflict against the Persians in the early 4th century. Despite Spartan successes on the continent, the war was lost at sea in the Battle of Cnidus (394). Later in the 4th century, however, Persian rule in Anatolia was severely shaken by an insurrection of the Persian satraps of the west (362–359), which subsequently resulted in a considerable measure of local autonomy for the area.

Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia in the Achaemenian period

In the 5th century Caria was ruled by tyrants and princes, whose loyalties were divided between the Greek and Persian sides at the time of the Ionian insurrection. Between the middle of the century and the end of the Peloponnesian War, Caria belonged to the Delian League. It seems to have been constituted as a separate Persian satrapy, founded by Hecatomnus of Mylasa. The Carian satrap Mausolus (377–353), the first of the three sons of Hecatomnus who succeeded their father, took part in the great insurrection of the western satraps but later changed sides and conquered Phaselis and western Lycia for the Persian king. He likewise profited from the defection in 357 of a number of Athens’ allies, simultaneously enlarging both his own satrapy and the Persian sphere of influence as Rhodes and Cos were added to his possessions. Mausolus made Halicarnassus the metropolis of Caria. The architecture of the city, including the satrap’s tomb, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (another of the Seven Wonders of the World), showed strong Greek influence. The mausoleum was planned by Mausolus himself but was built by his wife and successor, Artemisia II (353–351). Later satraps were the second son Idrieus (351–344), his wife and successor, Ada (344–341), and Pixodarus, the youngest son (341–334).

Lycia was conquered by the Persian commander Harpagus after stubborn resistance by the people of Xanthus. The Lycians had to make a contribution to the expeditionary force led by the Persian king Xerxes in his invasion of Greece (480), but they later sided with Athens. In the latter part of the 5th century, Lycia remained nominally under Persian rule but in practice was almost independent. The presence of Greek loanwords in Lycian, the influence of Greece on Lycian art, and the use of the name Pericles by a Lycian king of the 4th century all attest to Lycian cultural dependence on Greece. The rapid progress of Hellenization in the 4th century is illustrated by bilingual (Greek and Lycian) texts dating from that period. About 400 bce the Persian grip on the country seems to have been strengthened. Persian rulers, such as Artembares, governor of western Lycia, are named in inscriptions and on coins. There is evidence that this same Artembares took part in the satrap rebellion. The Lycian king Pericles ruled over eastern Lycia between about 380 and 362. Toward the end of his reign Pericles was at war with Mausolus of Caria, who, in all probability, was given western Lycia as a reward for his betrayal of the satraps. It is uncertain whether any part of Lycia regained its independence before the time of Alexander the Great (334). A highly important Lycian trilingual (Lycian, Greek, and Aramaic) text, discovered in the Letoon of Xanthus by French excavators in 1973, discusses the introduction of two Carian cults in the heartland of Lycia and provides clear evidence of Carian rule. The date of the text is disputed, assigned either to the first regnal year of the Persian king Artaxerxes III (358 bce) or to 337 bce, the first regnal year of his son and successor.

During the 5th century Pamphylia belonged to the satrapy of the Sea Peoples (and its successors), but its cities were allowed to issue their own coinage. After the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of the Eurymedon (fought in Pamphylia about 469), Aspendus and one or two other cities of the south coast were incorporated for a time into the Delian League. In 449, by the terms of the peace concluding the Greco-Persian Wars, the Persians recovered control of Pamphylia, though they seem to have respected its autonomy. Inscriptions from the Pamphylian city of Side (modern Selimiye) in a local Sidetan script and language, together with the legends on Sidetan coins, prove the existence in this city of a strong indigenous population group between the 5th and 3rd centuries bce. The history of Cilicia under the Persians can be divided into two distinct periods: the period from 547 to 401, during which it was a kingdom recognizing Persian overlordship, and the period between 401 and 334, during which it was under the rule of a Persian satrap. During the first period the land was governed by an indigenous dynasty of kings, all of whom bore the name Syennesis. In the second period the Persians probably controlled only a narrow coastal strip of western Cilicia, where there was a numerous Greek population.

Anatolia in the Hellenistic Age (334–c. 30 bce)

In 334–333 bce the Macedonians, under Alexander the Great, conquered Anatolia from the Persians and proceeded to destroy the Achaemenian Empire. Alexander’s empire was short-lived; quarrels among his successors brought about its fragmentation before 300, and by 275 three dynasties, descended from three of his commanders, had been established in various parts of the territory he conquered: the Seleucids were based in Syria, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Antigonids in Macedonia. Anatolia itself was divided, as Lycia and Caria were governed by Ptolemaic Egypt while the Seleucids governed most of the other parts of the peninsula. Pamphylia changed hands frequently, but Cilicia, Hellespontine Phrygia, Phrygia, Lydia, southern Cappadocia, and Cataonia were Seleucid satrapies. In the early 3rd century the states of northern Anatolia (led by Heraclea, Byzantium, Pontus, and Bithynia) formed a league against the Seleucid king Antiochus I. In 278 three Celtic tribes that had migrated across Europe to the Dardanelles were taken as allies by Nicomedes I of Bithynia. The Celts invaded and ravaged Anatolia until they were defeated by Antiochus in 275. Thereafter they were settled in northern Phrygia by Nicomedes and Mithradates, where they served as a buffer against the Seleucids. The district they occupied was thereafter called Galatia (from Galli, the Latin word for Celts).

In the middle of the 3rd century, Cappadocia became an independent kingdom, and the rulers of Pergamum on the Aegean coast began to enlarge their territory. The Cappadocian leader Ariaramnes (c. 250–225) carved out a kingdom by incorporating into his own possessions the territory of other local dynasts. Pergamum, originally a mountain fortress, eventually became an important continental power through the careful maneuvering of its rulers, Philetaerus (282–263) and later his nephew Eumenes I (263–241). Attalus I (241–197) took advantage of the growing weakness of the Seleucid kingdom to further expand his influence. He broke the power of the Galatians in two battles before 230, adopted the title of king, and from 228 to 223 ruled over the entire Seleucid territory north of the Taurus Mountains.

Antiochus III (223–187) temporarily restored Seleucid power in Anatolia. By 220 Attalus I was again restricted to roughly the original borders of his kingdom. Disturbed by the renewed expansionism of the Seleucids, in 200, Egypt, Rhodes, and Pergamum appealed to Rome for help, claiming that Antiochus had formed a pact with Rome’s neighbour, Philip V of Macedonia. In 197 Antiochus conquered the entire coast of Anatolia from Cilicia to the Hellespont while also attacking Pergamum in the interior. In 196 he crossed the Dardanelles and brought the conflict to Europe. After some hesitation the Romans intervened against him (192–189). After two defeats, first at Thermopylae and afterward in Magnesia (not far from Sardis), Antiochus was forced to accept the peace of Apamea (188), which made Rome the predominant power in the Hellenistic East. Rome reorganized the Anatolian states: Lycia and Caria were allotted to Rhodes, though when this period of Rhodian domination ended in 167, Lycia became a Roman protectorate; Antiochus III was forced to surrender all Seleucid possessions in Anatolia except the Cilician plain. The principal Anatolian powers were then Rhodes, Pergamum, Bithynia, Pontus, and Cappadocia.

A new and final stage of Roman involvement was reached when Attalus III (138–133), the last of the Attalids, bequeathed the kingdom of Pergamum to Rome. All of western Anatolia was then reorganized as the Roman province of Asia. The remainder of the peninsula came under Roman rule in the 1st century bce.

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Asia Minor is the place where the continents of Asia and Europe meet. It is also known by its Greek name, Anatolia. In the past Asia Minor was a meeting point for travelers passing between Asia and Europe. Today it is part of the country of Turkey.

One of the great crossroads of ancient civilization is a broad peninsula that lies between the Black and Mediterranean seas. Called Asia Minor (Lesser Asia) by the Romans, the land is the Asian part of modern Turkey. It lies across the Aegean Sea to the east of Greece and is usually known by its Greek name Anatolia.

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